1.06 hotfix killed my saves is there a way to fix this or revert to 1.06 before hotfix?

nope. On the bright side you get to start fresh.

If you have a physical copy of the game, you can install the gold version (meh), but outside of that, you're pretty much out of luck. It's best to read patch notes before blindly updating, especially since Impulse doesn't force updating on you. Outside of that, you could archive the game using Impulse before updating which would allow you to roll back at the expense of hard drive space.

But I must say that his is just the worst thing they can do in an update. I mean since release 3 or so patches, and the last one broke the savegames. If I start again, is there a guarantee that I won't lose my savegames again in a few days? And not updating is just not a good advice taken the very buggy state the game was released in. I mean wow, Stardock, really? I always thought you guys cared about your customers, but in my eyes this release has been a disaster so far. IMHO there should have been a converter or something that can convert your savegames to the new format, with approximations if gameplay changes don't allow for a one to one conversion, and let the user decide if he wants to use it or he wants to start all over again. It's not like there is a ladderboard that would be upset by this (or is there?), and with so many games coming out I don't think I have the time to waste on replaying campaigns over and over again, I have to make money as well to buy them. That said I love the game, and I like and expect SD to patch it continously, but please don't do this again! Thank you.

First off, there was another thread on this and some folks reported that saving and reloading a "broken" save under 1.06 would fix it.

But...

I'm not sure why this is a big deal.

With this game, every patch is making a lot of fixes and changes that it badly needs.

It's in your best interest to start a new game with the revised and fixed gameplay.

It is also impossible for the devs to guarantee they'll never break save game loads with a patch, because there is so much that could possibly change.  It's just reality.  Most of the time SD folks are really good about keeping saved games loadable, but it's not something I'd call a given.

Lastly, I'd expect this game to get patched a few more times this week.  Why start an epic huge game that'll take you days to fix when the game is obviously in flux?  Play smaller game setups that you can complete before the next patch hits! 

 

I tend to play the campaign before anything else in any game that has one. And sorry I didn't find that thread.

This is the final nail in the coffin. I was ignoring all the hate threads and reviews, but this has killed the campaign for me. I had spent over 6 hours of play in the game. I don't have that much time to play, so 6 hours is a great deal to me, and now, all I have done is for nothing?.

To hell Stardock, this is the last time I pre-order a game of yours (I did it with sins, demigod and this one), I'll buy it when it's cheap (10€) and has been completely developed.

Outside of Stardock implementing some sort of warning popup in Impulse, there's nothing more that they can do to keep you from messing things up for yourself. You selectively patched the hotfix in without checking what it would do. To be fair, the change log doesn't bring up the hotfix info, but the information *is* there via the website.

Patches can and do break saves at times, and this is hardly something unique to Stardock. If the only way to fix a core bug is to break the saves, then I'm sad to say, your save is going to be hosed. They're not going to keep the bug so that your 6 hours forever remain loadable.

I swear, the devs are in a damned if they do, damned if they don't situation. People complain because there's bugs. People complain because they're fixing bugs.

"Outside of Stardock implementing some sort of warning popup in Impulse, there's nothing more that they can do to keep you from messing things up for yourself."

 

The "blame the user" attitude around here from some of the fanbase (not stardock) is incredible. Let's see... nothing more they can do... How about not require 4 separate patches in like a week? That sounds like one possibility. Oh I know, offer to revert back to previous patches. Yup that would work too. Autoconvert save games? Yup, sounds like it could work. Warn the user when they try to update via impulse that this breaks all previous save games. Seems like that could have worked as well.

 

No that's all illogical. The user should have realized he shouldn't patch right away. He should first go to the forums and read posts for like 2 hours to make sure he's not missing anything. We all have unlimited gaming time and should keep up to date on the forums in addition to playing the game.

Its in the thread about about 1.06 patch in the dev journals, right below the the changelog. it was the whole 1.06 patch that unintenionally broke the savegames.

They don't require anything. You apply them optionally. You don't like having 4 updates in a week? Don't update 4 times in a week. Telling them to halt bug patching is stupid.

Oh please, how many devs release undo patches or have their patches perform backup operations to revert to pre-patched state? None that I know of. You can back up the game through Impulse. If you don't want to, that's your own choice, much like applying the patches in the first place.

They tried to make the game use the old bugged saves in the original 1.06. It didn't work well. They gave up and killed support for them in the hotfix. If it was so easy for them to convert the saves, then they would have made it capable of loading them to begin with. This is a silly option.

https://forums.elementalgame.com/393126 Or just go to the dev journals and search for 3 seconds. Sorry that I give people the benefit of the doubt on having a brain. Especially those getting a strategy game. Personally I think your approach is more insulting to the general public. I'd rather educate them on good computing practices than assume that they're incapable of learning basic things and have to have something hold their hand all the time.

I stand by my idea of having a warning pop up on update being the most logical course of action that they could take beyond what they already do. Aside of course from actually updating the change log for hot fixes which *should* have been done, but wasn't.

Except you didn't say "most logical course of action." You acted as if there was nothing they could have done to prevent the problem. I presented possible solutions. I didn't say they were the norm or necessarily WORTH the time. A lot of my friends with young kids now are lucky to get 6 hours a week to game. Yes, losing that time sucks. They basically outright stated the game needed updates. People aren't idiots because they are performing said updates. Like you said even the change log didn't mention it.

I had downloaded the 1.06 patch (after reading the patch notes), ran into the issue of not being able to move units and followed the work around to get it to work.  The next day I applied the hotfix not thinking that between the 1.06 patch and the hotfix that they were going to make save games unplayable.  I didn't think to read the hotfix notes cause I figured it was simply implementing the work around for people, not making it impossible to play a saved game.  To find out that they made it impossible to play saved games prior to the hotfix was rather annoying.

Thing is, it would be helpful if Impulse would show patch notes for the available update so you could make a decision from there.  Even then, the hotfix should have had it's own notes vs. a footnote to the 1.06 patch notes.

I find it disappointing that people are jumping on the OP for making his frustration known.  I also think it's an unfair expectation of people to expect them to "research" every patch whenever they want to play a game.  Some people just want to play the game.

Right click on game -> view history. Though it wouldn't have helped you in this case for the hot fix, as that information was unfortunately only on the forums. This much Stardock is most certainly at fault for - that information should always be there. (The lack of information via the Impulse method should, however, throw up a red flag for people alerting them that further research needs to be done into what the patch actually does, but alas...)

As for the not wanting to research and just wanting to play comment... The safest path is simply not to update unless you absolutely need to in the middle of a game. Even if a patch doesn't outright break your save, a balance change could render your entire strategy useless, and force what would basically be a restart anyhow. Knowing what goes into a change is rather critical; otherwise you're just playing with fire.

That and I don't see anybody really jumping on the OP. He asked a question and got an answer, and I recommended some ways he could avoid the problem in the future. It wasn't until valrond's rant about how Stardock screwed him out of his 6 hours that I started to even get remotely jumpy. It just bugs me when people feel that they don't need to take even the slightest bit of responsibility for their actions. The game doesn't auto patch. The user has to accept at least some responsibility for blindly performing an action, regardless of what Stardock could have done better in the situation. (Which is a problem with society in general these days... people don't want to take responsibility for their own actions and prefer to pass the buck and make it entirely somebody else's problem.)